Argument. III. The covenant doth not only alter the nature and property of the saints, afflictions,
Argument. III. The covenant doth not only alter the nature and property of the saints, afflictions, but it also orderly disposes, and aptly places them in the frame of providence, among the other means and instruments of our salvation; so that a council of angels could never place them, or the least circumstance belonging to them, more aptly and advantageously than it hath done. The knowledge of this must needs quiet and fully relieve the afflicted soul: And who can doubt it that believes it to be a covenant ordered in all things, as the text speaks? Here all things, yea, the most minute circumstances that befal you, are reduced to their proper class and place of service; so exactly ordered, that all the wisdom of men and angels know not how to mend or alter any thing to your advantage.
If a small pin be taken out of the frame of a watch, and placed any where else, the motion is either presently stopped, or made irregular.
And as Galen observes of the curious fabric of an human body, that if the greatest naturalists should study an hundred years to find out a more commodious situation, or configuration of any part thereof, it could never be done. It is so here: No man can come after God and say, this or that had been better placed or timed than it is, if this affliction had been spared, and such an enjoyment stood in the room of it, it had been better. All God's providences are the results and issues of his infinite wisdom: For "he works all things according to the counsel of his own will," Eph. 1:11. The wheels, i.e. the motions and revolutions of providence are full of eyes, Ezek. 1:18. They are well advised and judicious motions, Non cœco impetu volvuntur rotœ; they run not at random. The most regular and excellent working must needs follow the most deep and perfect counsel, Isa.
28:29. "He is deep in counsel, and excellent in working."
Now, every affliction that befals God's covenanted people, being placed by the most wise and infinite counsel of God in that very order, time, and manner in which they befal them, this very affliction, and not that, at this very time, and not at another, (it being always a time of need, 1 Pet. 1:6.) and ushered in by such forerunning occasions and circumstances: it must follow, that they all take the proper places, and come exactly at the fittest seasons; and if one of them were wanting, something would be defective in the frame of your happiness. As they now stand, they work together for your good, which displaced, they would not do.
It is said, Jer. 18:11. "Behold, I frame evil, and I devise a device." It is spoken of the contrivance and frame of afflictions, as the proper works of God. The project of it is laid for his glory and the eternal good of his people. It turns to their salvation, Phil. 1:19. But O how fain would we have this or that affliction screwed out of the frame of providence, conceiving it would be far better out than in! O if God had spared my child, or my health, it had been better for me than now it is. But this is no other than a presumptuous correcting and controuling of the wisdom of God, and so he interprets it, Job 40:2.
"He that reproveth God, let him answer it." God hath put every affliction upon your persons, estates, relations, just where you find and feel it; and that whole frame he hath put into the covenant, in the virtue whereof it works for your salvation; and therefore let all disputings and reasonings, all murmurs and discontents cease; nothing can be better for you, than as God hath laid it; and this, one would think, should heal and quiet all. You yourselves would mar all, by presuming to mend any thing. "Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor, hath taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding?" Isa. 40:13, 14. Well then, be satisfied it is best as it